Chris Christie’s next big move toward 2016

Chris Christie will cap his landslide reelection in New Jersey by taking the reins of the Republican Governors Association, a platform that promises to enhance his stature as a leader of the Republican Party and 2016 frontrunner but also threatens to tether him more firmly to the tattered GOP brand.

In assuming the chairmanship of the association later this month – the highest-profile position in the party that Christie has taken on – Christie will be able to travel the country and tout the successes of a rare collection of bright spots in the GOP the past three years – its governors.

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Christie's victory speech

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And that will mean, implicitly or perhaps even explicitly, Christie trumpeting his own legislative and electoral success as a Republican leader in a Democratic state. If he can do it, part of the governor’s message will undoubtedly be, so can the party at large.

Yet selling that message of pragmatism could be more difficult on the heels of two closely-watched gubernatorial contests – his own and the race in Virginia. Ken Cuccinelli’s unexpectedly narrow loss is almost certain to prompt outrage among his supporters about what might have been had national GOPers, including the RGA, not bypassed spending on the race in the final weeks.

Christie’s team at the RGA is expected to keep valued staffers such as Executive Director Phil Cox. It is also likely to dramatically curtail the involvement of certain vendors, chief among them the Bobby Jindal-advising firm OnMessage Inc.

The position will give Christie cover to get outside of his home state in support of other candidates over the next year — ahead of an almost-certain presidential campaign that his supporters and aides have done little to tamp down expectations about on the way to his reelection rout. The association had a budget of nearly $40 million in the bank, with a fundraising goal of at least $100 million next year.

“He has more of the abilities to be a strong RGA chairman than many governors, because he is from the New York media market, so he’s much better known in the business community than the average governor,” said former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, whose stint as RGA chairman at the beginning of the tea party wave was widely praised. “In each case, that gives him a big leg up for one of the more important roles of the RGA chairman, which is raising money.”

Yet Christie will also have to brace for some new realities. He will be more closely connected to the national GOP by virtue of being a committee chairman. And he will be under intense scrutiny as the early frontrunner for his party’s nomination in 2016, likely facing whispers, as Mitt Romney did when he was RGA chair, about using the committee to further his own career.

That all amounts to a potentially tough challenge for Christie, who has developed a party-of-one reputation, fairly or not, over the course of his first term in office.

“He doesn’t really allow a lot of other people in his playpen,” said GOP strategist Alex Castellanos, who worked with Romney in his 2008 presidential run. “But very few of them do.”

The RGA has proven to be a mixed bag as a platform for other candidates. For instance, Romney got the support of just one fellow governor in his 2008 campaign, fresh off his stint as RGA chairman, because his colleagues simply didn’t like him.

And Christie could give elevation and credibility to the message of another Republican who’s considered a potential 2016 hopeful, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, by talking about getting elected in a blue, pro-union state as a budget-buster. The New Jersey governor could end up inadvertantly helping Walker, a theoretical national rival.

What’s more, Christie could be creating a trap for himself by offering his own campaign in New Jersey – in which his opponent was literally abandoned by her own party – as a model not just for other statewide races, but for 2016. The electability argument has worked for few national candidates, and some Republicans believe Christie will have to outline a deeper message.

Still, the risk for Christie in the job is minimal, Castellanos argued.

“The danger would be does he become seen as a defender of the Republican establishment and I say there’s zero chance of that because he” is so established already, Castellanos said, calling him the “classic outsider.” “I don’t see much of a downside for him. It’s a great platform.”